Home Is Where
by the ticking clock
Summary: ...Your team is. Or, After the events of the Winter Soldier, the Avengers assemble at Tony's house in various states of disheveled disrepair, and Tony does NOT run a homeless shelter. Shameless Fluff. Cowritten with Merdan.


**This was written late at night. Excuse the crazy and the typos. **

Tony is just starting to fall asleep when JARVIS's smooth voice cuts through the silence.

"Sir."

Pepper groans and buries her head in the nearest pillow. "I thought I said no more machines after midnight, Tony."

Sitting up, Tony waves a hand vaguely in her direction. "I know, I know. Sorry. It's not like I can just-"

"Sir."

Pressing his clenched fists to his eyes, Tony growls out a, "_what _Jarvis?"

"Agents Romanoff and Rogers are outside."

Tony blinks, certain that the AI is playing some kind of elaborate prank on him. He hasn't heard from any of the Avengers in months. Natasha had escaped to some foreign country with Clint after the event of New York, and Steve was deep under Fury's watchful eye. Tony shudders at the thought of ongoing SHIELD missions, but Steve has always seemed to like following orders, when he wasn't giving them. "What did you say, Jarvis?"

"Agents Romanoff and Rogers are outside," the AI repeats dutifully. Then, after a slight pause, "The matter seems fairly urgent, sir."

Casting a sidelong look at Pepper, Tony silently asks, _Should I...? _

Snapping her fingers, Pepper turns on the beside light. Her hair is a tangled mess, her cheek imprinted with the pattern of the pillow, but her eyes are blue and weary and laughing. "Go on," she says, the words rough, but affectionate. "Your team needs you."

Tony rolls his eyes, leaning in to give her a quick kiss, "since when did they become MY team?"

Pepper's laugh is warm against his lips. She tastes like honey and iron sweat and perfume, and Pepper. "Go on, Iron Man," she says, giving him a firm shove. "Answer your door."

"Sir," JARVIS's voice has risen in pitch, now. "Agent Romanoff is threatening to break down the door."

"Tell her I'll be there in thirty seconds," Tony calls, shrugging into a loose hoodie and slippers, "and that patience is a virtue."

"Of course sir."

Stark Tower's many hallways are comfortingly quiet as Tony pads down the labyrinth to the side door that only the Avengers and Coulson know about. He is certain that Fury had probably figured it out at some point, but, still. It was not a door that any ordinary civilian would have known how to use.

Tony checks the peephole, just in case. Natasha's furious green eyes glare back at him. "Open the damn door, Stark."

"Language," He chides, smiling despite himself. Though he and Natasha have long pretended to despise each other, there is an unspoken affection between them. He is all raw nerves and rash ideas, and she is cool calculation and control. Pepper finds their differences amusing, and after some consideration, Tony has come to realize that there is something a bit funny about their friendship. The fact that all the Avengers have not managed to kill one another is a miracle in and of its self.

Tony swings open the door.

Natasha is upright, but obviously injured. Her clothes are bloodstained, and crusted with dirt. She's leaning heavily against Steve's arm. The Captain greets him with a curt nod. "Stark."

Natasha pushes past both of them with a rough misstep, completely ignoring Tony's outstretched hand and Steve's hiss of concern. "Everyone we know is trying to kill us," she says, her voice echoing in the empty, dark hallway. She turns on the two men, eyebrows raised, "Can we crash here, for a few days?" Without waiting for a response, she says, "Thanks," flashes Tony a rakish grin, and steps into the hallway, snapping her fingers to turn on the lights on the second floor. "I'm showering first, Cap," she calls over her shoulder, "I got more blood on my clothes than you."

Tony looks to Steve, who shrugs as if to say, _do you really expect me to stop her? _

Clapping the other man on the shoulder, Tony steers him into the living room, (the one without the giant flatscreen, and the comfiest couches) and pours him a drink. "You better tell me what the hell is going on," he says.

* * *

><p>Steve makes himself small, all hunched shoulders and tired eyes, and even though the burn of the alcohol does nothing the motions of drinking are enough to begin knitting together the ragged edges of his nerves. "You're plugged into every known - and probably unknown - electronic device in the world. Haven't you seen the news?"<p>

"Does this have to do with SHIELD?" Tony takes a long swallow from his glass, pursing his lips at the potent burn. "Nope - don't tell me - you two were the ones galavanting around D.C. and blowing helicarriers out of the sky." He pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling grimy and gritty and exhausted. "Do I want to know why?"

Steve runs a hand through his short hair, feeling the pull of dried blood at the roots. "I'll give you the short version. SHIELD was - is - Hydra and they've been orchestrating history for the past sixty-nine years." _And they used Bucky to do it._ The thought stuck in his throat, squeezing at his heart as he thought of bold, brash, fierce, wonderful Bucky - a weapon. A tool for evil.

_I thought he was dead_.

Stark watches him with calculating russet eyes. Eyes that almost seem to hide a glimmer of sympathy. "And I assume you thrashed them soundly for it?"

The Captain's lips thin, a warning like ice beneath his furrowed brows. "They created a system - based on _your_ designs, by the way - that would single out potential threats, that would _eliminate _them." His voice shakes, the tendons in his hands vibrating with a desperate need for action. "They were going to kill innocent people."

They both knew that he will never let that happen.

He watched with sullen eyes as Stark hefted the decanter, sloshing more amber-colored scotch into Steve's glass. "We stopped them. But, you know, cut off one head and three more grow back." Steve shook his head, listening to the quiet bustle of Natasha somewhere down the hall. "I thought - I thought they were gone, Tony. When I went under, I thought that would be the end of it, that we'd win and Hydra would be destroyed." God, he wished he could still get drunk; then, at least, he could wave away the lump in his throat and the tightness in his chest as nothing. He'd always been a weepy drunk. "Was I really that naive? Everything I stand for, everything I've done... has Hydra been guiding my hand this entire time? Was I really doing what was right?"

Tony watches him silently, his mouth is sour and his eyes are bright and hard. "Cap..."

"I believed in a lie. I lived a lie. I trusted the lies and took them as truth." Steve slams his drink down, hard enough that the scotch sloshes everywhere and the glass shatters in his fist. "I'm tired of being lied to!"

"All right, slow down there, Spangles." Tony's eyes are locked on his wet and stinging fingers, and slowly Steve starts to feel the pain of glass shards in his palm, the trickle of blood in the crevices of his hand. Tony is already moving, tossing him a clean towel from some hidden drawer, peeling Steve's fist open to survey the damage with coarse and blackened fingers. Already, the small wounds are starting to pink and heal, pushing the shards of glass out with a _plink, plink, plink_ as the skin scabs over. Tony gives him a nauseated look, twisting his mouth. "Aren't you just a Miracle Man, huh?" He muses, staring at the bloody shards of glass. "Want a Band-Aid?"

Steve offers a wry, miserable chuckle. "Gonna take one hell of a Band-Aid to fix this mess."

* * *

><p>Natasha is an expert at cleaning blood out of clothes.<p>

After her shower, she runs the sink as hot as it will go and sets to work scrubbing. The water burns her knuckles and she hisses. Maybe she should leave the gear to soak for a few hours before she can really begin to work on the stain.

Sighing, she switches off the bathroom light and steps into the dark spare bedroom she had claimed for herself. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she deftly re-bandages her shoulder, the movement mechanical, instinctive. She barely flinches when her fingers probe the bullet's hole. Pain is a strong motivator, she had learned in the Red Room, and decades of experience kept her breathing steady and controlled as she finished her work. Her shoulder only throbs now. She's been carrying the wound for a few days, and the initial screaming burn of the impact has soaked into her muscles. Her shoulder retains the memory of bullets ripping through flesh, and she is hardened to the pain.

After cleaning and wrapping the wound, she slips one of Pepper's old t-shirts and loose sweatpants that JARVIS had somehow provided for her. The cloth harsh and scraping against her raw, exposed skin. Biting her lip, Natasha tilts her head back, rolling back her shoulders to work at the knot tightening in her back. Every inch of her body is sore tonight, and will be for at least the next coming days. It is not a new feeling, but still, she does not welcome it.

She can hear Steve and Tony's low voices from downstairs, and decides to leave them alone for at least another twenty minutes. Steve has been on edge the past couple of weeks, and although they are starting to trust each other more, her presence is only a reminder of the suffering they've experienced together. He needs a new face to tell his worries too, and to be honest she's not sure if she has the patience to deal with either of them.

She needs Clint.

She's needed him through this whole ordeal-the terror of fleeing SHIELD, their whole work and world crumbling about them. She trusts Steve, but he does not know how to navigate her emotional storms, how to calm her, how to know what she means with only the slightest glance. Steve has not been her partner for years. He may share her old age, but he is still very much the young terrified soldier, barely pushing twenty five.

She has seen nations rise and fall. She's been unmade and pieced back together, and then broken again. She's seen the very worst of humanity, and Steve simply cannot even begin to understand what that is like.

Clint, to be fair, can't either, but at least he knows when not to push her for too much information. Sighing, she picks up her phone and presses the speed-dial.

Clint picks up on the third ring. "What the HELL is going on?"

His voice both infuriates her and sends a massive wave of relief crashing down on her shoulders. The tension in her back eases somewhat. Clint. Still, she answers his question with silence.

"Nat?" She can picture his expression: eyebrows drawn together, hand half raised, cupping the phone closer to his ear in order to hear her every word, "Natasha, what is going on? Are you hurt? Answer me?"

"I need you to tell me something," She tries to make her voice flat and even, but this is Clint, so her guard slips. She realizes with numb surprise that her hands are shaking.

"Okay..."

"Tell me you're not Hydra."

"Jesus, Nat-"

"Tell. Me. Now."

"I'm not Hydra," he says, perfectly exasperated and so wonderfully Clint-all bright snark and raw frustration, "now, please tell me WHY Maria Hill left me twenty seven messages on my answering machine when she knows I don't have good service?"

"Where are you?"

"That's classified," he teases, then, realizing she is not in the mood for games, "Somewhere in the Appalachian mountains."

"Well get your ass to Stark's house. We're all being watched."

"Yeah, I gathered that from Maria's screaming and all the code words I've only ever heard during emergency training sessions," She can almost see him rolling his eyes, "but are you hurt?"

The sudden softness in his voice nearly undoes her. She blinks furiously and swallows hard, running her free hand through her hair in a quick, nervous gesture. "I-"

"You're hesitating," he says, cutting off her half hearted attempt to lie. 'Tell me the truth, Nat."

"I was shot," she whispers. "Shoulder."

"You removed the bullet, right?"

She let's her silence answer the question. Clint knows better.

"Sorry," he says, and she can hear the faint smile in his voice. "You sure you're okay?"

"No," Natasha hisses, leaning her head against the wall and clenching her eyes closed to stop the tears from falling. "How is any of this remotely okay?"

"Yeah," Clint's voice is gentle, "I'll be there in eight hours, okay?"

"You better be."

"Is that an order?"

Natasha manages a smile. "That's an order, Agent Barton. Or I'll hunt you down and drag you hear myself. Or Stark will."

"Stark doesn't care."

"Oh, come on," She rolls her eyes, "You know he does. Deep down."

"Yeah, whatever. See you soon. Be careful."

"You too."

He hangs up.

Natasha stays in the comforting darkness of her room, and tries to remember how to breathe.

* * *

><p>"Tony?" It's somewhere around three in the morning and none of them can sleep. Stark prattles on about some new tech, pulling up schematics and tossing holograms through the air and Steve's eyes are whizzing back and forth trying to keep up with all of the information, but he's nodding along and feeling useful as a sounding board for Tony's crazy ideas. Natasha has emerged from the bedroom, looking bedraggled and savagely unhappy, and snags a bottle of vodka from Stark's stash.<p>

They're sitting together in the large room, all wide awake and humming with excess energy when Pepper appears in the doorway, towing a familiar ragged figure in her wake. "Tony!" It's only when she shouts that he finally snaps out of inventor-mode, poking his disheveled head over the back of the couch with wide and wild eyes. Pepper gestures serenely to the small, hunched man hanging back behind her shoulder. "Bruce is here."

Tony's eyes light up with manic glee. "Now it's a party!"

Banner, looking grey-around-the-gills shuffles his feet and manages a furtive glance from beneath his mop of grey curls. "I don't actually know what happened - but I can assure you, it wasn't me."

"Nah," Steve waves him over with a welcoming fondness. "It was me and Nat. Well..." he reconsiders his statement, glancing at the listless redhead. "Mostly me."

Despondent in the corner, Natasha offers Banner a wan, malicious smile. "We blew up SHIELD."

Bruce perches at the edge of the couch, looking for all the world like he might fly away in fright at any moment. He pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. "Do I really want to know?"

Steve cants his head. "Probably not."

"This is what happens," Banner sighs, digging at his temples where he can feel a dull ache growing. "I avoid civilization for the better part of a year, and when I finally come back you've managed to blow things up and overthrow the biggest intelligence agency in the world." He shares a look with Pepper. "You need better adult supervision."

"Are you volunteering as a big, green babysitter?" Tony teases.

Bruce throws up his hands. "Absolutely not. The Other Guy doesn't exactly mix well with children."

"I am older than you," Steve protests from the couch with a grin. "I get Senior Citizen discounts."

"Seventy years in ice doesn't count for years of infinite knowledge and wisdom," Tony shoots back, blowing out a snort. "Who the hell gives you Senior Citizen discounts?"

* * *

><p>Clint arrives around 5am, all messy hair, rumpled gear and wild-eyed. JARVIS doesn't bother to announce him. The archer simply stumbles into the living room, throws his bag on the floor, and collapses on the couch. "Well," he announces to the room at large, "Look at us. Avengers," he waves a hand to the other former Shield Agents, "Assembling and all that."<p>

Steve gives him a look that Clint can only describe as paternal exasperation, "Where the hell have you been, Barton?"

Sighing, Clint tilts his head back against the couch cushions. He has a headache, and does not particularly feel like trading banter with his teammates at five in the morning. "The mountains. Some classified assignment. Didn't have cell service. Hill freaked."

Tony hums something vaguely comforting and taps the mostly empty Scotch bottle against couch arm. "Drink?"

"God," Clint says, tipping his head sidewise to look at the other man out of the corner of his eye, "have you been drinking all night?"

Tony grins.

Natasha uncurls from her position on the couch beside Pepper and Banner and slips to his side, all tense muscles and wild emotion. He can see that she's to exhausted to offer him any real wit, but she smiles and kisses his cheek. "You are so dead tomorrow," she whispers.

"Yeah," Clint says, wrapping an arm around her, "I know."

She settles down beside him, careful not to disturb her bandaged shoulder, resting her head against his chest. She's warm, and smells faintly of strawberry shampoo and rust. She's Nat. She's home.

"So," Clint says, nodding to Bruce, "Hydra get you too?"

The scientist is half asleep, cheek resting against the arm of another chair, blanket pulled up to his chin. Clint can barely see his face-only a mass of untamed curls. The other man shakes his head. "Not exactly. Hill just told me we were all in danger and came to collect me."

"Has anyone heard from Thor?" Steve asks.

Stark shrugs. "He's off being all "Lord of Asgard" or whatever. I don't know if he really pays attention to what's going on down here."

Natasha shifts her position, digging her knee into Clint's ribs. He protests with a soft hiss. She smiles. "That's not necessarily true," she says, "Jane's here. He loves Jane."

"And Jane is involved with Shield," Steve reminds them, "A bit."

"Well," Tony's words are starting to slur, "I wouldn't trust him to-"

"GREETINGS FRIEND STARK!" The massive figure of red and muscle and chiseled blondeness bursts through the doors with a booming laugh.

"Speak of the devil," Clint mutters with a grin.

Thor falters mid-stride, his glow of hubris and charisma dimming. The smile starts to slide from his face. "My friends," he proclaims, throwing his arms wide. "I did not expect to find you all here at such an hour - but it does my heart glad to look upon you all once more and see that you are well! I have heard much from my Jane of late, and some very troubling developments indeed."

Clint rolls his eyes as Steve chokes back a snort. "You don't know the half of it, buddy."

"Indeed," Thor acquiesces with an enormous grin. "Perhaps you might be so kind as to fill me in?"

Tony, disheveled and with dark circles growing under his eyes, sits up on the couch and peers at the Asgardian with bleary eyes. "Shit went boom. Mostly Steve's fault. SHIELD was not so great." He rolls himself to his feet, graceful even as his head starts to swim. "Y'know what? Enjoy - you all have the run of the place. JARVIS give 'em the access codes and all the jazz they need to get around in here without being diced by the lasers." He snatches up his drink and stretches the kinks from his back. "I'm going back to bed. You coming Pepper?"

She blinks, staring at the convention of superheroes gathered in their living room with enormous, uncomprehending eyes. "Yeah. Yes - yes, I'm coming."

* * *

><p>In the darkened hallway outside their room, Tony pauses to turn back and stare at her with bewildered, bright eyes. He scratches his chin and mouths 'what the hell?'<p>

Pepper only shrugs. "Every stray need a place to come home to."

"Steve has an apartment. Natasha and Clint I am _sure_ have arrangements. Thor - well, Thor's an inter-dimensional transient, not much to do about him. And Bruce... meh, I don't mind Bruce." Tony downs the last of his drink and flops back onto the bed. "Why did they all have to come _here_?"

"Birds of a feather flock together," Pepper hums. And just as Tony is about to admonish her for the annoying metaphors, she continues. "You're all crazy and you have a million problems and like attracts like, so deal with it."

A few days later the team is still lounging around his tower and Tony is leaving not-so-subtle "Stark Tower Hours of Operation" papers around the place.

They are continually ignored.


End file.
